Lanka tells UNESCO:

Retract statement on VoT

The Government has registered its strong protest at the recent statement made by the Director General of UNESCO Koichiro Matsuura, in which he has "condemned" the air strike on the Voice of Tigers (VoT) radio station, which has been described as a "civilian" radio station.

Sri Lanka has demanded the retraction of the Director General's statement.

Sri Lanka's Ambassador in France and Permanent Delegate to the UNESCO, Chitranganee Wagiswara yesterday handed over a letter of protest from the Government of Sri Lanka, addressed to the Director General of UNESCO.

In it the Ambassador noted that the Government was surprised that the UNESCO saw it fit to issue such a statement on an attack on a clandestine radio station directly operated by the LTTE, a well known terrorist organisation, which is proscribed in a number of countries including India, US, Canada as well as the member states of European Union.

It adds that only two days before the UNESCO statement, the LTTE exploded a bomb in the Colombo suburbs killing 19 innocent civilians including women and children and that earlier the same day an LTTE female suicide cadre made a failed attempt to assassinate a Cabinet Minister who belongs to the Tamil community.

The letter notes that VoT is neither legal nor legitimate and its programme content promotes and glorifies terrorism and hence it cannot be considered as a "civilian radio station".

In the same vain, those employed at the VoT facility cannot be considered as "civilian" media personnel. It also points out that reference in the UNESCO Director General's statement to the "Geneva Convention" is totally out of context and not applicable as there is no war or confrontation between two sovereign states in Sri Lanka.

Noting that the LTTE radio facility is in contravention to all internationally accepted norms and that no international convention could give protection to this illegal station operated by a terrorist group, the letter asserts that being a propaganda organ of a terrorist group, the VoT station was a legitimate target for attack, in the fight against terrorism in Sri Lanka.

Stating that it would have been much more appropriate had the Director General obtained all the facts relating to the incident prior to issuing this ill informed statement and noting that the Government of Sri Lanka remained deeply perturbed by the contents of his statement, the letter demands the retraction of the Director General's statement.